The Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis by Iulius Valerius are the Latin translation of the so-called Alexander Romance, a Greek work falsely attributed to Callisthenes in the manuscript tradition. Angelo Mai discovered the Res gestae in an Ambrosian manuscript of the Xth or IXth centurywhich also contain the Itinerarium Alexandri (see the notice on the Itinerarium Alexandri).Large lacunae mar the text of the Ambrosian manuscript. A manuscript from the XIIth or XIIIth century, now in Paris, has a fuller text. A palimpsest containing the Res gestae burned in the 1904 fire of the National Library of Turin. The genesis of the Greek Alexander Romance, which includes many legendary tales related to Alexander’s campaign, is debated. Recently, Stoneman has argued for a Hellenistic origin of the first nucleus of the Romance. It was then copied and adapted several times, and we have a number of different Greek versions. The translation by Iulius Valerius does not correspond exactly to any of them, even if it is closer to the older version (the so-called α-version). The translation must have been written after 270 AD, since it mentions (I 31) the Aurelian walls of Rome, whose building started in that year. The narration of some episodes in the Res gestae is similar to that found in the Itinerarium Alexandri. Scholars have generally argued that the Itinerarium (written very probably around 340 AD) imitates the Res gestae and have concluded that 340 AD must be the terminus ante quem for the Rest gestae. The Res gestae do not mention Constantinople when listing the largest cities in the world; this omission may suggest that the work was composed before 330 AD. Lately, Jean-Pierre Callu (2010) has suggested reversing the chronology, arguing that Iulius Valerius is imitating the Itinerarium, but his arguments are unconvincing. This would place the Res gestaeat the end of the fourth century AD.

The narrative is divided into three books, Ortus, Actus, Obitus Alexandri and follows Alexander’s deeds along a fantastic journey, very different from the historical one, taking him to the West, to Rome and Carthage, before his Persian campaign. The narration is interspersed with epistolary exchanges between Alexander and various correspondents: the Persian king Darius, his teacher Aristotle on the wonders of India, his mother Olympias, the Brahman philosophers. These letters also have an independent tradition, both in the Greek and Latin versions. The Res gestae were enormously successful in the Middle Ages and later: their reception includes several epitomes, adaptations and translations into romance languages. [R. Tabacco; tr. di L. Battezzato]